


Bonds

by TrulyCertain



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Lyrium
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24115774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrulyCertain/pseuds/TrulyCertain
Summary: He wonders why he ended up in Kirkwall, of all places. A city full of damned mages. The irony.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	Bonds

He wonders why he ended up in Kirkwall, of all places. A city full of damned _mages._ The irony.

At first he thought it was that bitter irony amusing him: the city of slaves, the city of chains, the site of a revolution. Fitting. That, and it was a port to stop at once he’d hit the Marches mainland and kept running. The old Tevene ones are the easiest to stop at, even if Danarius knows of them too.

At first his time in the Imperium blinded him. Kirkwall, by comparison, was almost peaceful. Or perhaps he’s simply grown inured to blood mages and crises round every corner.

It took him too long to realise. But as time passed, the thought spread among those he knew: something is very wrong with this city. And as the histories and accounts became not frustrating shapes but words he could understand, he realised that something has been wrong for a very long time. The more he slowly, white-knuckledly pored through Hawke’s library and the tomes he’d bought with the guard’s money, the more obvious it became.

At first he thought it was simply the mages. This place stinks of blood magic almost as much as the Imperium. It’s in the way atrocities gather; the architecture that glorifies shackling his people, the hurried, fervent glances between apprentices.

And yes, perhaps - though something whispers in the back of his mind, _You have seen templars fall to demons, too._ It sounds frighteningly like Hawke. But for all his anger, he didn’t survive his escapes through being blind _._

The lyrium, then? He’s wondered if it might be the cause of this mess. The Deep Roads entrance so close, the strange infested ruins the Harrimans found below the city, the strange idol maddening Varric’s brother… Bartrand said it _sang_ to him. 

Perhaps the lyrium in his skin is calling to its brethren, and he simply followed. (On a leash once more. The more things change…) In time, he too might succumb - to demons, or to the lyrium that nearly broke him the first time. He knows that some part of him must be in the Fade when he phases. Perhaps the place has wormed into him in return, colonised his mind. Some nights he wakes scratching at his skin, and he can’t tell whether it’s old scars or that thought. 

But Kirkwall, for all its terror and strangeness, feels dangerously comfortable. There’s work to be found in leaving slaver pieces scattered down the Wounded Coast. His… friends, he thinks, in his more complacent moments, are here. To care, and be cared about… It’s a strange feeling. Perhaps he should leave, if he thinks the lyrium will take him and they’ll have to watch. 

But some part of him is selfish. That selfishness killed the Fog Warriors, but it saved him once before. That selfishness means Hawke faced blades and blood magic and told him he was worth such a sacrifice. That selfishness means he can argue with mages and not face the whip; have them simply preen and look insulted rather than tear him apart with his own blood. It means he can trace lyrium-lined fingers over words and know them, mouth fewer and fewer of them as he goes. 

He is a man who reads stories, now. He is a man who has torn voraciously through _Hard in Hightown_ and will deny it until Varric gets him drunk on the Hanged Man’s vile wine, or until he’s on his deathbed. A slave was never allowed to waste time on _enjoyment -_ to snort at the worst passages with a glass in his hand, to mock them with a delighted pirate afterwards, to beat a guardsman at cards. They draw him like a moth to a flame - dangerous, but frighteningly warm.

And there are no certainties in a place like Kirkwall - good or bad. Surely after so many years, his nightmares would be of blue crystals, not bloody hands? Surely when he smelt the lyrium on templars’ breath, or the few times they have seen the strange red formations, they would attract him, not repel him? He has strained his ears and heard no song. Maybe Hawke broke certainty in the world the way Hawke broke certainty in him and made him rebuild. _Kaffas,_ even if the lyrium doesn’t kill him, some two-copper Coterie thug might get past his guard one day. There’s no use in troubling Hawke with it.

He will not die like a frightened dog. _There is a time you must stop running._ He thinks of that more and more, these days. Perhaps he’ll live up to his own words, someday. Perhaps, he thinks as the years pass, he already has.

He has been a brother, a slave, and a fugitive. Perhaps it is time to practise being a man who stays.


End file.
